ABSTRACT
Automated school fees payment
system is a research work that will help build an effective information
management system for Anglican Girl's grammar secondary school within the admin
department. The designed software will serve as a more reliable and effective
means of documenting school fees payment and cash payment and eliminate errors
associated with the manual method of recording payment details. This project
work made use of data collected from the secondary school library, and
journals. The aim of this project work
is to achieve the following; to effectively and efficiently process students
school fees payment and document it, to provide a reliable and transparent
system devoid of personal inclinations and interest and to provide borderless
access to ensure prompt retrieval. The implementation of the computer-based
school fee payment documentation system was carried out using Visual basic
languages, Access database. The result obtained from this work was the design
of an efficient system that will help to enhance the system of school fees
payment, with minimal cases of error so as to give room for accuracy and
transparency. In conclusion, the work met all the objectives intended.
Title page i
Approval Page ii
Dedication iii
Acknowledgment iv
Table of contents v-vii
Abstract viii
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.0 Introduction 1
1.1 Background of the Study 2-4
1.2 Statement of the Problem 4
1.3 Aims and Objectives of the
Study 5
1.4 Significance of the Study 6
1.5 Scope of the Study 6
1.6 Limitation of the Study 6
1.7 Definition of Terms 7-8
CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
2.0 Introduction 9-10
2.1 Record Management 10-11
2.2 Automated Payment Systems 11-13
2.3 Reasons for Automation of
Cash Operation 13
2.4 Computerized Recordkeeping/
Accounting System 13-14
2.5 Definitions of Record
Management 14-15
2.6 Managing Electronic Records 15-16
2.7 Methods and Types of
Electronic Payment 16-17
2.8 Role of Information Technology in the Academic System 17-19
2.8.1 Data and Information 20-21
2.8.2 Computer Based Information Systems 21-23
CHAPTER THREE:
SYSTEM ANALYSIS AND DESIGN
3.1 General Description 24
3.2 Fact Finding Method Used 24-25
3.3 System Requirements 25-26
3.4 Program Design 26
3.5 Database Design 28
3.6 System Design 28-29
3.7 System Flowchart 29
3.8 Program Flowchart 30
3.9 Use Case Diagram 31-33
CHAPTER FOUR: SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION AND
TESTING
4.1 Implementation 34
4.2 System Sub Function and
Implementation 34-35
4.3 Sub System Implementation 35-37
4.4 Program Testing 38
4.5 Program Implementation 38
4.6 Software Testing 38-39
4.7 Program Procedural Chat 40
CHAPTER FIVE: SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND
RECOMMENDATION -
5.1 Summary 41
5.2 Conclusion 42
5.3 Recommendation 43
References 44-46
Appendix A “ Program Source Code
Appendix B “ Input and Output Format
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
The
essence of obtaining an education is for better adaptation in society, and to
be able to make an impact therein. The desire to acquire knowledge is the
natural feeling of mankind and every human being whose mind is not debauched
will be willing to give all that is required of him/her to get knowledge.
It is based on this fact that educational
institutions have been set up for people to enroll and learn. However a there
is always a price to be paid for such knowledge. This price is commonly
referred to as ‘School Fee’ or ‘tuition fee’.
According to Oxford Dictionary (6th Edition),
fee is defined as an amount of money that one pays for professional services.
Simply put, school fee is that fixed interval payment made by a student or
students to the school he or she attends. From the definition, one can outline
that school fee payment supposed to be in a regular interval that is timely,
however atimes such fees are not paid as at when expected. This could be as a
result of financial challenges on the part of the student.
Late payment of school fees creates a lot of problems
for school management. When students refuse to pay their school fees in time,
the school management lacks the financial strength to be as effective as
expected. Apart from the management being ineffective financially, students
also face challenges such as not being allowed to write their examinations.
The need for ‘computer based’ system for fees payment necessitated
this research, in order to help solve these problems of either delayed fee
payment, or the students not paying at all or the fee being misused/mismanaged
or stolen as a result of a criminal
attack. either on student at the course of payment or the bursary
department/school management.
Using Anglican Girl's Grammar School Awkunanaw, Enugu state as a case study,
the research has the intention of creating a software that could process
students school fees payment to Anglican Grammar girl's bank accounts and
electronically lodging individual students fees indicating name, class, category, registration number,
level/class, date of payment, amount of money paid, academic session/ bank's
name, account number, phone number, and other personal records etc. This will
ensure timeliness and safety of payment.
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE
STUDY
Anglican Girl's Grammar School, Awkunanaw, Enugu state
was founded in the year 1962 and became operational on the 15th of
March with twenty-nine students. Subsequently two students arrived to make a
total of thirty one students. The pioneer Principal is MissJ.O. Emelumadu (now
Mrs.Muo). Three non-tutorial staff were part of the foundation workers. They
are namely: Beatrice Aloanza (cook), OnamNnji and Nweke Ede (Watchmen). The school operates with
the following levels JSS and SSS for the SSS science, commerce and art schools.
In this school, there is need for an automated method
of keeping data, more so a greater need for an automatic school fees payment
system. These would go a long way in alleviating the various problems and
challenges associated with the manual method of school fees payment.
Hence it became imperative for a school fees payment
system to be put in place to eliminate the shortcomings of the manual system.
Today the computer is being used in virtually every
sphere of human endeavors, we can find
computers everywhere around us. In fact the story of the 21st
Century will be incomplete without mention of computers and their applications.
It’s almost impossible to even imagine the modern facilities without the use of
computers. For many individuals computer means ‘PC’, on which they can see
movies, play games, prepare office sheets and manage daily planners.
Computer means much more than the term ‘PC’. A
computer can simply be defined as a machine which takes instructions and
perform computations and operations accordingly. These commanded instructions
are known as programs and computers execute these programs to do an operation.
At a time, a set of instructions can be given to a computer to perform several
operations, simultaneously. This feature is a point of distinction for the
computers.
Many types of computers are available these days.
Depending on their usage and service application. They can be classified in
various categories. Supercomputers are capable of doing trillions of
calculations in fraction of seconds, so they are used as controlling units of
banking transactions; to keep records of railway systems, in schools to monitor
school fees payment system in the bursary department and air transportations;
to conduct decent flow of telecommunication and many more complex operations
can be controlled, organized and conducted by using supercomputers.
On the other hand computers are also used in
conducting simple operations like billing, ticket transactions, record
maintenance, security analysis etc. And even computers (PC) are also used to
carry out general home based activities such as office sheet maintenance, day
planner, entertainment etc. So computers are involved in every sector of life
with different forms and different applications.
In modern our world everything around us like GPS, ATM
machines, cell phones, petrol pumps, portable play stations and all other
devices use computer controlling units to conduct their featured operations.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE
PROBLEM
The processes of manual school fees payment have resulted
to a lot of problems, which in turn prevent students from writing exams in time
due to the slow rate of processing the school fees from the bursary department.
There are also cases of misplacement of the school fee tellers because of lack
of adequate storage medium.
1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The specific objectives of this project include:
i. To
provide a reliable and transparent system devoid of personal inclinations and
interest
ii. To
provide a system that will relieve the staff and works of the academy the
stress of searching files or data manually
iii. The new
system will bring an end to the issues of lost receipts or of any kind as the
records and data will be stored in the new system’s database which is safe and
reliable for use and operation.
iv. The new
system gives a quick access to data and modification of records if necessary.
v. To save
time (fast inputting and accessing of records)
vi. To
design a system that will be capable of generating the student receipt when
payment is made and recorded with all the corresponding awaiting bills is
incurred
vii. To
ensure accuracy in record keeping.
viii. To
ensure safety of the documents/records, because the system will be password
aided to enhance security.
1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The project work will help in a good number of ways to
ease the operation of the existing system of school fees payment. The new
system will contribute to the efficient management of school fees payment
records.
1.5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
This research work is limited to school fees payment
and documentation for the student of the Girl's grammar secondary school, Awkunanaw, Enugu. The resultant software
is developed using Visual Basic, MS Access, so as to manage both
the database and the Graphical user interface (GUI).
1.6 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
Some of the constraints that outcome of this work
include:
Resources: The cost of hardware,
software, site design, online distribution cost, maintenance of site and time
constraint; all these factored into the cost of providing the product.
Power supply: Non Availability of
stable, efficient and reliable power supply is also a limitation of this
project as it is dependent on electricity.
The bandwidth, which means how
quickly information travels between the computer where your web site is located
(your Web server), and the visitor’s computer. In spite of the fact that
56.6kbps modems, and even 10Mbps cable modems are becoming more common, many
people on the internet are still using 28.8kbps modems.
1.7 DEFINITION OF
TERMS
Computer Network: Computer Network is a
system that connects two or more computers together using a communication link.
(Bufts 1989) World Wide Web: World Wide Wed simply called www is the most
important tool of the Internet. (Jeff 20010)
Databases: A systematically
arranged collection of computer data, structured so that it can be
automatically retrieved or manipulated. It is also called databank. (Adoca
2001)
File Transfer: Any kind of computer
file can be sent via the Internet from one Internet user to another. Table of accounts
on spreadsheets, design by a graphic artists, music sound files etc, can all be
exchanged in this way. (Smith 1999)
Web Brower: This is a special
kind of software that processes hypertext make-up language (HTML) document. In
other words, a web browser is a computer program that interprets HTML command
to collect, arranged and display the parts of a web page. (Cleff 2000)
Web Site: A website is a
collection of many interconnected web pages organized by a specific college,
organization company etc, containing web pages (good and commodities) on the
Internet. Web site are stored on web servers. There are many web site and
thousand of HTML pages on each web site. A web site is a treasure of
information and entertainment. ( Donald 1986)
Hyperlinks: Hyperlinks are
highlighted words and phrase you find on web documents that you can click on as
to jump to some other documents or Internet services. ( Clex 1990)
Offline: Disconnected from
computer network; describes a computer terminal or peripheral device disconnected
from a computer network. (Wikipedia 2011)
System: Set of computer components that is, an
assembling of hardware, software and peripherals functioning together. ( Fans
2011)
Automation: This is the use of
control system such as computer to control and process data, reducing the need
for human intervention.
Database: This refers to a
large store of related data on a computer that can be accessed and modified by
the user.
Record: is a document made
or received in the course of a practical activity as an instrument or a
by-product of such activity, and set aside for action or reference.
Password: This is a secret code
that a user must type into a computer to enable him access it or its applications.
This is composed of numbers, letter, special character or a combination of any
of the above categories.
Receipt: a piece of written
note that attests to a payment made to one another caring the amount paid and
balance if incurred usually signed by both party or one end.
Nice Blog Post !
ReplyDelete